Drinking Buddies
by Mrs. HopeEstheim
Summary: "You'd never catch up to me anyway!" was the boast that fell from her lips as she slammed her empty tankard down. Mira was instantly placing a fresh one beside her, and she lifted it again, this time in Laxus's direction, as she smirked and said, "But you can try."


**THE FOLLOWING IS FROM A WEEK AND A HALF AGO WHEN I FIRST TYPED THIS: So I've watched a metric shit-ton of Fairy Tail in the last three days (From the Oracion Seis Arc to the middle of the Tenroujima Arc), which is funny because I never really liked the anime and just stuck to the manga, and have also re-read at least 15 of my old fanfics…and boom! I decided that a new Laxana from me is far past due.**

**Loosely inspired by my previous Laxana, **_**Purely Physical**_**. But only very loosely.**

**I hope you enjoy!**

**ALSO: I decided that this is going to be a 2-5 shot. The exact number of chapters is undecided.**

* * *

_Reinstated_.

As soon as Master Makarov and Laxus stepped out of his office that day, as Master Makarov announced that he was reinstating Laxus as a member of Fairy Tail unless there were any serious objections (not that he'd had any choice in the matter, since it had been one of Gildarts' only decisions in his few hours as guild master), the uproar was amazing. None of it was negative. It was a positive cacophony of whistles and cheers and even Fried and Bixlow's happy tears.

And Cana was the first to raise her tankard and shout, "I can drink to that!"

A cheer went up, and the rivers of alcohol began to flow. Wendy crinkled her delicate nose at the smell and contented herself to be as far away from the biggest part of the ruckus as possible, with Charle, Lucy and Levy at Gajeel's normal table. For the rest of the guild, it was quickly becoming as big an event as any. And Cana was at the center of it all, challenging member after member to drinking contests and watching them fall to her superior alcohol tolerance.

"Cana, don't you think you've had enough…?" Macao suggested tentatively, but she just laughed it off. The room was barely blurry, and wasn't even close to spinning, so of course she didn't have enough alcohol in her system! Although she wouldn't say that much out loud.

So instead, she said, "I'm perfectly fine! I bet I can still out-drink you, old man!"

That got him going, and Wakaba, too, as they were the same age, and another drinking battle began. She sometimes wondered at the fact that she hadn't learned her lesson from Bacchus...but that was months ago now and she was in the grasp of her booze now. Just a little bit more never hurt anyone or anything—except maybe her liver, but she was young and she'd get over this stage soon enough.

"Don't underestimate me," Macao's gravelly tone drew her attention once again, and in her haze she remembered that it was that very same voice that had drawn her to him before the S-Class Exams had placed him so far out of her reach. Wakaba then voiced his agreement with Macao as the fire mage said, "I've got age and experience on you, Cana!"

But she had youth and vitality, and with slightly more difficulty than some of the others, they, too, were down.

"Someone else come take a drink with me! Or a thousand!" she roared, laughing, as she sloshed a little bit of beer from her tankard. For a while she started to despair that her fun was over and that her precious booze was all that would be left of her night, but then a figure plopped down at the bar stool nearest where she perched on the bar. His blond hair still had confetti in it, but he had a fierce determination in his eyes that she'd rarely seen.

"Laxus!" the brunette laughed, "It doesn't even look like you've started celebrating yet, and it's all about you! Drink up!"

"It's never too late to start," he retorted, lifting a tankard that Mira had just given him, "but it seems like you have a head start."

Her laugh was incredulous.

"You'd never catch up to me anyway!" was the boast that fell from her lips as she slammed her empty tankard down. Mira was instantly placing a fresh one beside her, and she lifted it again, this time in Laxus's direction, as she smirked and said, "But you can _try_."

* * *

When her vision started to blur, she was amazed to find that Laxus was still conscious, and when her equilibrium went out of whack, she found him just barely tipsy. Somewhere in her drunken mind, she found a new respect for him because of his tolerance.

Sometime in the course of the evening the two of them were found sitting at a table with Gajeel and Natsu, drinking as a team against the dragonslayers. She was leaning against him quite happily, still drinking away, and his arm was draped across the bench behind her as he downed the last of his tankard. It was the sixteenth between them since they'd started going at it with the two dragonslayers, and now that Natsu was passed out on the table, Gajeel was struggling through their fourteenth tankard.

"Laxus! Laxus!" Cana was cheering, laughingly, as the blonde man chugged a fresh tankard. As he was doing this, she tipped hers back and tossed the empty vessel aside, reaching for the next.

At nineteen for Laxus and Cana and just fifteen for Natsu and Gajeel, the iron dragonslayer grunted and fell sideways into the fire dragonslayer. The first didn't stir from his unconsciousness, and Cana lifted her almost-empty tankard in victory.

The room was awhirl with light and sound and she hardly knew which direction she was going or what she was doing, other than the fact that she and Laxus were still drinking and neither one of them were down yet. She knew that a lot of what she said probably didn't make sense to anyone else anymore, unless they were as drunk as she was, but that was fine, because she had an accomplice, and it felt _great_ that she wasn't alone anymore.

Later, she and Laxus were leaning on each other as they walked—staggered—back up to the bar to get another tankard, but Mirajane of all people turned them away.

"I think you two have had enough," she said gently.

Cana protested incoherently for a while until she and Laxus assisted each other to another table, where just a passed out Visitar sprawled.

"Hey…" Laxus said after a very long silence during which Cana was mourning the lack of booze in her hand. "Wanna go to a bar?"

The brunette, still leaning against him, sat up quickly to grin at him. The motion made her dizzy and she slumped back against his broad chest. With a sigh, she decided to remain as she was while she answered him, "That sounds like a _fantastic_ idea, Laxus!"

And so, as Cana giggled, drunk beyond her normal threshold, Laxus helped her stagger over to where her purse was and she in turn helped him stagger over to where his nice, furry cape was. She couldn't help but remark on the fur, once they had stumbled outside together.

"It's so _soft_," she almost whispered, rubbing her cheek on it. She was still leaning on the person wearing it, so she didn't see anything wrong with it. "And it's so _fluffy!_"

The lightning dragonslayer (of sorts) chuckled and paused for a minute, almost causing the drunk card mage who was leaning on him to fall. She grumbled about it a little, but her attitude instantly changed when she realized that he was holding open his super furry coat to let her in. It was chilly out, she reasoned as she tucked herself closer to his side, plus this thing was just too fuzzy to resist.

_So fuzzy…_

* * *

Cana groaned.

She hadn't had a hangover this bad since the first time she'd ever gotten drunk. But oddly enough…she still felt really _good_ about it all. She rubbed her eyes, brushing the night's crust away, and considered trying to sleep more, but her mouth felt like rubber and she probably had breath that could kill. A yawn bubbled up then, and she stretched a little to go along with it—but only a little, since something was obstructing her movement.

This something groaned almost exactly like she had on first waking up, but with a deeper voice. Cana's heart froze for a moment, wondering what kind of shit she had gotten herself into. The last thing she clearly remembered was that she'd been hitting the bars with Laxus.

Now she was somewhere with some random stranger and she didn't even remember the night before. She kind of dreaded opening her eyes, but she knew she had to so she started to mentally prepare herself for the endeavor. She determined that, at the count of twenty-five, she would open them and be done with it. What she would find, she wasn't entirely sure, but part of her was terrified and the other part simply curious.

But she never got past eighteen.

"…Cana?" came a groggy, surprised voice, and stale alcohol breath washed across her face. Her eyes snapped open to find an expression that was as confused as she felt. His disheveled blonde hair fell across his forehead and she could tell his hangover was as bad as hers just with a glance. A few years of binge-drinking and you start to recognize the signs.

"Laxus?" she finally managed to move the giant furry slug in her mouth that most people call a tongue. It was heavy and didn't want to do what she told it to, so she wondered if she had slurred the _x_ and the _s _in his name.

Maybe it wasn't the right thought to have, but relief flooded her when she realized she wasn't with some random stranger from a bar. At least this was someone she knew, someone who knew her, and they could respect each other after this was all over. They were practically family, minus the blood relation part, so it shouldn't be awkward…or not for very long. She wasn't nearly as scared when she realized it was him, although she dreaded the exploration of the situation and what they might have done.

"Oh, Mavis," he murmured, rolling onto his back and taking most of their cover with him. She didn't recognize the room, but it had his smell _everywhere_ so they must have ended up at his place…somehow. After a pause, he asked, almost timidly, "How are you feeling?"

Cana thought her heart skipped a beat. He was actually asking that? It was actually really sweet, considering the possible circumstances, and since she hadn't dared to peek at what she was or wasn't wearing and didn't have the luxury of her sense of touch at the moment, she simply replied, "Hungover."

The answer had the desired effect, as Laxus snorted in amusement.

"No shit," he retorted, lifting his hand to lay it over his eyes from the light filtering through his curtains. "I don't think I've ever had a hangover this bad…"

Cana chuckled, which made her head pound even more than talking or listening to _him_ talk did, but she pushed the dull throbbing out by sheer force of will. It was still there, but she noticed it less than before as she put her focus into examining him. The sheets were tangled around his lower abdomen, and his torso was bare.

It was a _nice_ bare torso, though.

_Dammit, Cana, __**focus**_**, **she cursed herself mentally. She had to think about the implications of his bare chest. It could just be his natural state of sleepwear, or…_that_. But…she didn't really feel much different from yesterday, aside from the throbbing in her head, so she knew she'd have to assess her own situation before determining what may or may not have actually taken place. And so she readied herself this time to look down rather than to open her eyes by counting slowly in her head to five.

At five, she turned her gaze downward. The first thing she noticed was her bra firmly in position, though she was without the shirt she'd worn over it. The next thing she noticed was the fact that the sheets she _did_ have covered her knees and below, and what she saw of her legs were covered by the capris she had been wearing the day before.

_Now_ she could breathe easier. And complain at the chill creeping up on her.

"Hey, gimme some of the cover back," she demanded, though slightly teasingly. "I'm getting cold."

He grunted his assent and rolled back over, sliding his arm under the sheet and tossing it back over her as he did so. She shuffled around a bit under them, then snuggled down, and thanked him before looking back up at him. They were face to face, just a few inches apart, and somehow it wasn't awkward at all. Yes, they were both hungover, but they also both had fairly decent control over their mental faculties and yet…no awkwardness.

"You don't seem to have a problem with this," Laxus softly revealed what she had just been wondering at herself, and the fact that he was blunt was something she was always thankful for.

"Could be worse," she responded, rolling the shoulder she wasn't laying on to work out a kink. "I can leave now if you want me to, though."

His eyes fluttered closed as he drearily murmured, "Nah. It's warmer this way."

Her equally dreary, "Mhm…" faded of as they both slowly drifted back to sleep.

Maybe when they woke up next they'd have a different reaction, she mused as she floated away into her subconscious, but they would work that out then.

* * *

**Thanks so much for reading!**

**I had just a little more here…but I've moved it to a new document and decided that this will be a short story between 2 and 5 chapters long. Because Laxana needs the love and those like, three paragraphs didn't quite fit with the current mood of the story.**

**Anyway, I hope you liked this beginning, and stay tuned! I don't know how long it will take for the others to come out, considering that I **_**shouldn't be starting another story dammit**_** but oh, well. Wish me luck with my few metric shit-tons of homework and big projects coming up!**


End file.
